Shootin' It Straight- True Characters

Several years ago, the television network USA launched a campaign called Character Parade. The idea was to have viewers contribute stories and pictures of unique people who stood out in everyday life. It was a solid concept, but it soon became watered down with actors from the network's shows being portrayed as quirky personalities whose oddities and tics were supposed to make us love them. Good idea. Poor execution.

Characters are not created or written into a script. One needs to look no farther than a hometown or neighborhood to find them.

Characters come in the form of that World War II veteran who sits alone in a rundown home on the edge of town. An old, broken shadow of what he once was, he still rises before dawn for no other reason than to preserve the order that has always defined his life. Wrinkled fingers comb silver hair back in a futile attempt to hide the shrapnel scars on his temple.

He has nowhere to go, but he tucks his button-down shirt into neatly creased pants nevertheless. He sits in a chair left over from better days, gazing out the window at land he can no longer maintain. His stubbled chin rests upon a worn cane, but his mind never does.

Thoughts of farm fields, blue skies, and buddies lost on sandy beaches half a world away fill his days. The things he has seen, the places he has been, the wisdom he carries—it's all tucked away somewhere beneath the layers of his mind.

Character doesn't always come packaged as an ultra-cool television doctor with perfectly sculpted features. You don't have to look any farther than the local diner to find a storybook life. We are surrounded by fascinating people who will never see the silver screen except from the comfort of a worn recliner in their living room.

I have never been much of a talker, but I have always loved being around people who are. Keeping my mouth shut and my ears open has provided me with more stories, knowledge, tall tales, and entertainment than I could ever recall.

Unplug the earbuds, lose the ever-present internet connection, and find some real people. I recommend looking for those old men with one foot propped on the bumper of a pickup truck outside the local hardware store, dirty-faced and with a cheek stuffed full of Red Man.

Look for the lady who can win the county fair's quilting contest, then chase cattle across a muddy pasture before putting on her Sunday best and leaving her husband in awe.

I am unapologetically biased toward all things country, and I firmly believe that very few lessons worth remembering have ever been learned beneath the fluorescent lights of a department store. I believe past generations were cut from a fabric that, if not extinct, has become exceedingly rare.

Seek out the characters from years gone by. Listen to them. Learn what it takes to compile the kind of stories that fill the empty spaces inside a person's mind—spaces that seem to grow a little larger with each passing year.